What's so funny?
by LadyPalma
Summary: 1537-1540. Who would have expected an alliance and maybe something more between the newest Spanish ambassador and the most loyal and most mysterious King's servant? Cromwell/EmiliaOfAragon myOC
1. Chapter 1

**So, this is my new fanfiction and neglecting just for a moment my beloved TomKat, I decided to focus on a character I love, Thomas Cromwell. The story will be very short, about 5 chapters and will cover the years between 1537 and 1540. What more can I say? I hope you like it and please let me know if you do (or don't either!)**

**Desclaimer: I sadly don't own history nor The Tudors. I own instead the character of Emilia Of Aragon, but I'd prefewr to own Thomas Cromwell... If you know what I mean :P**

* * *

**What's so funny?**

**1.**

If someone thought that Thomas Cromwell was the grimmest, most mysterious, most feared and for some ways the most dangerous at Court, would have been gravely mistaken, or at least he would have been right until his eyes would have lain on Lady Emilia. Long wavy hair that fell free on her shoulder and two pitch-black eyes gave a first impression of the character of the woman who was sitting at the big banquet in the Main Hall of the Royal Palace, without paying attention to anyone and speaking just a few words only with Chapuys, the Spanish ambassador for the Emperor. Because of what she had established for only just a week at Court was a mystery for everyone: she wasn't one of the new Queen Jane's ladies in waiting and anyway her aristocratic features and her so graceful movements, let guess that in her veins poured noble blood, even Royal. It was still whispered about her presence and lots were the hypothesis about her… a foreign princess, a cousin of the Emperor, the sister herself of King Henry: these were only some of the voices whispered, without even knowing that mixing would have given life to the right answer. Only a few were aware of the secret and among them were of course the new Lord of the Privy Council, that approaching the table were Lady Emilia was having dinner, strangely free from the imperial ambassador's control, took a sit right in front of her.

"Lady Emily" he addressed her bowing her head and he saw her made a grimace of annoyance hearing her Spanish name in the English pronounce. "Your Excellency" added then, calling her with the usual appellative for the ambassadors.

Because that was who Lady Emilia was: the ambassador for the Spanish Crown who was held now, after a new Comuneros revolt by Joan of Castile. She was a woman ambassador, the first, indeed the second after Catherine of Aragon and anyway it was the same family. Lady Emilia was in fact the younger sister of the First Queen of England and the last daughter of the Catholic Kings, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.

"What can I do for you, My Lord?" she asked without even raising her eyes, while the ironic tone used betrayed the helpfulness that the literal meaning of the sentence suggested.

Thomas kept on looking at her for a few seconds and then did something that he wasn't used to do for a very long time: he slowly started to chuckle. A few people around turned to check that that prelude of laugh really came from the mouth of that grim character and even her in the end looked up to him.

"What's so funny?" she asked raising the black eyebrow, almost darker than the eyes.

Cromwell didn't answer and started to laugh for real.


	2. Chapter 2

**Here it is the second chapter! I'm a bit upset no one left me a review so I don't know if someone will like it or not... Anyway I'll post it!^^**

* * *

**2. **

1539.

Two years were gone and while the King sighed for the death of her beloved Jane and all the power and the important decisions were passing in the hands of the Lord Chancellor, he kept on watching from afar the evolution of that beautiful ambassador who he had learnt time by time to know something more about. He had seen her angry, worried, proud, contemptuous, sad, hurt, while in all of this, the only thing that still remained unchanged, was the light in her proud gaze, that he had only seen in two blue mirrors some years before and now like an armorial bearings was coming to reflect itself again.

Natural enemies, this is what they were meant to be and he had understood it since the moment of her presentation. What he understood instead only after those two years, and only by accident, was that they could have been also artificial allies.

"Our father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy Kingdon come…"

So he had found her on a day at the end of March, while thinking of being alone in the chapel of the Palace, she was on her knees praying in front of the Cross. But the news of that pray aloud was that it wasn't said in the language of Roma's founders, but in English with a strong Spanish accent. They never found out which of them was the most surprised, if he discovering that side of the woman's faith, that fervent catholic as the rest of her family showed Lutheran tendencies, or herself discovering the presence of the Lord of the Privy Seal behind her back.

"I think that… some ideas of the reformers are not so wrong" she said after some time of reflection, giving an explanation that he hadn't asked yet and he wasn't going to ask either.

Thomas Cromwell simply stared at her, then looked away unable to answer or ask more. So she was the one to ask.

"What's so funny?"

And she asked it even before he started to laugh. Because she knew that he would soon have done it: when she was around he always did.


	3. Chapter 3

**I'm sorry I haven't updated sooner, but I was on a short holiday :) Anyway this is the chpater, and I hope you like it! Reviews are appreciated very much... Thank you!:)**

* * *

**3.**

6 January 1540.

The ceremony of the wedding of the King with his new wife, the German princess Anne of Cleves was just over, but even though he was the one who suggested and encouraged it, Thomas Cromwell couldn't be satisfied by the way things were turning out. The echo of Henry's screams at him boomed still in his ears and all he could feel, under the mask of absolute indifference and coldness he was forced to put on, was fear. That marriage would have meant a powerful ally for England, an increase of his own personal power and a victory for the reform, but what would have happened if it hadn't worked? The lord Chancellor would have not even wanted to think about it, and yet every sign, the way the King looked at her new bride, her feeling so awkward on the English throne and then again the echo of those screams, seemed to lead to that eventuality.

Nevertheless in that so awful day, a simple look had been enough to dissipate his fears; he had spent all his day during the celebrations on his own in a corner of the Royal Hall and suddenly he stood up from the chair which he was sitting in and he approached the Spanish ambassador on the other side of the room. Those present gave him a surprised and curious look, some of them maybe also amused thinking that the Lord Chancellor must have been drunk; instead Thomas Cromwell was lucid, at least enough to take one of the woman's hand between him and kiss it with such a gallantry he was never seen to show.

"Your Excellency, dance with me!" he simply said, looking at her straight in her eyes, without leaving her hand, on the contrary taking the other too.

It hadn't been a question, nor an invitation, not even an order. Maybe just a notification, since without waiting for an answer, he took her to the centre of the Hall.

"I never saw you dance…" she noted raising an eyebrow as the new music started.

"That's because I never did… Not for a twenty years until now at least…" it was his short quick answer before they'd been separated by he dance.

Emily found herself in front of the late Queen Jane's eldest brother, Edward, while Thomas in front of his wife Anne, and yet none of them had been able to look away from each other. It was like if a fire was burning behind their icy eyes and when they met that ice seemed to melt down.

"If I can speak honestly… It's quite obvious" the ambassador whispered with her usual ironic tone when they were again one in front of the other.

Thomas shook weakly her head and then he couldn't help but release a brief laugh.

"What's so funny?" Emily asked raising again the eyebrow, but couldn't be serious for too long in front of his unusual smile, that she was allowed to see so often.

And she burst into laughs too.

And Thomas was convinced now that besides Henry's screams, he would have heard in his head also the echo of that laugh.


	4. Chapter 4

**So, this is the last chapter... I mean, the last before the epilogue... By the way, should I write a sad epilogue or a happy one? Let me know^^ Now, I'll leave you to the chapter!**

* * *

**4.**

June 1540.

He could hear the echo of that laugh even now after six months, behind the bars of those four walls. In the end he himself, who had contributed to put in jail so may people, had ended up in the Tower of London; now his enemies in life were probably making fun of him, while the ones dead under his command would have surely mocking him in Heaven, even though something said to him that he wouldn't have ended up among God's Angels.

_"There really is_ _no difference between us except that I shall die today...and you tomorrow."_

Those were Thomas More's words during their last conversation right in that Tower, and after that he had only seen the head of the former Lord Chancellor at the entrance of the London bridge. Separated from the body. And those words were now coming back to bomb in his ears and the vision of the other man's lifeless face to pulse in his eyes: beyond saint and martyr, More must have been also a prophet. But it didn't take a prophet to imagine what the end of Thomas Cromwell would have been, he himself knew that, he knew that there wasn't an exit from that Tower, if not to death and in the meanwhile he was dying day by day, little by little. The only thing that he didn't know was when that unpleasant stay would have ended.

Thomas snap opened the eyes and untied the hands from the pray they were joined in, as he heard the door of the cell open. He stood up only to bend again in front of the Spanish ambassador, there was a part of him that was ashamed to be seen in the sorry state of prisoner right from her, but she was already prepared and didn't care too much for the formality of the meeting. One thing which both of them were agreeing to was that she surely shouldn't have been there.

"Lady Emily…" Thomas simply whispered, turning his resigned eyes to her.

Emily looked back at him for a few seconds, then she was forced to look away and to turn back. Not the sight of the awful conditions of the prison, nor the one of its inhabitants, had caused to the her a similar emotional upheaval to the one that Cromwell's simple look had achieved and just for a second she found herself unable to speak.

"I've tried to speak with the King… I've written to Spain about your situation… but…"

Emily suddenly stopped to talk and a bitter and nervous laugh escaped her lips. With the eyes fixed to the ground, she was forced to cover her face with the hands to prevent herself to show that reaction that had never, for so much years, allowed herself to express.

"What's so funny?"

This time he was the one to ask that question. But Emily wasn't laughing, not anymore.


	5. Epilogue

**We have come to the end :) I didn't forget this story (how could I?) but I really didn't know what kind of epilogue I had to write... So I thought to write two epilogues : you are free to choose the one you want LoL. Hope you like it:) I want to thank so much the ones that follows this story and put it in the favourites or simply read this and in particular VelocityGirl1980 that reviewed since the start, encouraging me to update.**

* * *

**Epilogue – The one sad**

28 July 1540.

Thomas Cromwell was walking slowly with the eyes fastened on the chains that kept his hands tied, like if he was a real traitor, and instead he had always acted in the interest of His Majesty, as the most loyal servant King Henry VIII had ever had and will ever have. Of course, he had also acted in his own interest, that was impossible to deny, but who, among the ones that now were accusing him, wanted him dead if not for their own profit? He slowly looked up just the time to catch, among the crowd, sight of the faces of his enemies: Sir Francis Bryan, Edward Seymour, Charles Brandon… The sadistic joy in their eyes totally reflected the amusement and the satisfaction of the people came to watch the macabre show that he would have unwillingly been the main actor of. But Thomas wasn't looking at anyone in those last instants of his life, he would just have wanted to not think anymore and, in a bit more than a few minutes, that desire would have been fulfilled.

"Father…"

A voice made him turned back, when he had just reached the stairs that would have led him to the scaffold and in that act he found in front of him his son Gregory who was trying in vain to hide the tears of pain among the laugh of the presents. Thomas would have wanted to embrace him for a last time but the chain around his hands didn't allowed that; luckily his son felt the same desire and for some second Cromwell senior felt loved. The sharp move of the guards on his sides broke that moment and the condemned was back to foretaste the oblivion of that senseless as ineluctable death. He said some words and then he knelt with the hands joined in pray, while the resignation left place to fear. He gave a look to the executioner on his right, so drunk that he could hardly stand up; of course he wouldn't have done a good job and his death would have been even physically painful. An ironic smile formed on his lips as he moved the look again to the crowd to search a last contact with his enemies: the drunk executioner must have been their last gift.

But the eyes he met weren't the ones of a enemy at all, on the contrary they were the only familiar he could have found. And they weren't his son's eyes at all. Lady Emily of Aragon was slightly aside with the yes fastened on the scaffold and Thomas meeting those black eyes for the last time, could swear she was crying.

Thomas instead simply smiled, thinking that he had never had the chance to say how much funny was the fact to have fallen in love with her at first sight.

And now there was no more time.

* * *

**Epilogue – The one happy**

On that morning of August, the sun seemed to shine only for them, for him and for her, and even the sky seemed brighter seen directly and not behind the bars of the prison: a show he wasn't used to anymore, after more than a month spent in the Tower of London as condemned, and that now was impossible to take for granted. It didn't matter if the roads, the trees, the houses around him didn't belong to the familiar surrounding of London but to a unknown place of the English coast. In a little while, he would have secretly embarked for Spain and if he would have survived the long travel, dangerous for possible assaults of pirates, he would have had to face all the difficulties to restart a life with a different language to learn, a different name to identify himself with and a different story to try to put on. But this time he wasn't alone.

"Thomas Kramer…" Emily whispered at his side while he was watching the horizon from the shore.

"Yes, it sounds good enough…" added Thomas, returning the smile and taking her hand.

They didn't know what to expect from the future, but whatever it would have been, the knew that the Sun would have always found them that way. Together. And they remained that way for some minutes until letting their eyes meet, both of them started to laugh, maybe of joy or relief, or simply for nothing, because since their first meeting, there was nothing of funny. Or maybe everything.


End file.
